It’s perhaps the saddest thing of all, a massacre in a US school no longer seems like a surprise. In many ways the horrors that don’t happen anywhere else on this planet are becoming everyday events. Yet the non-response from US politicians continue to baffle the rest of the developed world.

Soon before 5: 45 a.m. Thursday, the young man accused in a shooting that left more than a dozen people dead was escorted to Broward’s main prison in Fort Lauderdale. Nikolas Cruz was encompassed By Broward the sheriff who walked inside the facility. Some 15 hours before, the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook surfaced as authorities say a 19 year old man with a troubled past and an AR-15 rifle stalked the halls of Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Expelled from school on disciplinary troubles, Cruz is accused of squeezing shot after the shot as pupils took cover under desks, fire alarms blared and educators barricaded classrooms.

By the time it was over, some 17 people were dead or dying, and 16 were wounded. The AR-15 employed from the mass shooting was purchased By Cruz, lawyer Jim Lewis told the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Cruz already possessed the gun when he moved in with his buddy’s family in northwest Broward around Thanksgiving, Lewis said. This was his gun, Lewis said. The family made him keep it in a locked gun cabinet in the home, but he’d a secret. The family didn’t see him shooting at the AR-15, but did see him shooting guns, Lewis said. Cruz was arrested off campus and was taken to Broward Sheriff’s Office headquarters in Fort Lauderdale.

The events are of course being covered extensively on world media, there are even videos made by pupils who were trapped during the shootings. I think however one of the most poignant speeches in response to this tragedy was by Chris Murphy, a US Senator from the Sandy Hook district, the site of an even worse school massacre. His point was that this simply doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. It’s worth watching and is currently on the BBC News which you can watch from anywhere using this service – http://uktvabroad.org/ or google it as it may be available on other channels.

Though some students described Cruz as a normal teenager, others and a number of his neighbours called him odd, gloomy and distressed. A firearms enthusiast whose adoptive mother died last Nov, Cruz talked about shooting lizards, squirrels and frogs, said Trevor Hart, who knew him from Spanish course and said he seemed a little off. , Police were called to his home several times, said Shelby Speno, a neighbor, and that he was seen shooting at a neighbor’s cows. He wore a hoodie and always had his head down, said a neighbor, Janine Kartiganer. He looked depressed. Panicked parents streamed to the wealthy section of northwest Broward County on Wednesday mid-day, as information helicopters broadcast the episode live, cops crouched behind vehicles with trained weapons and students congregated on roads, many crying, hugging and phoning buddies and family.

In a blurry Snapchat image of within the college, a guy cried, Oh, my God, as the pop, pop of gunshots rang out and students screamed. Broward Sheriff Scott Israel said 17 people were killed, including both students and adults, with just two taken beyond the school, one in the street, 12 inside the school and two dying from their wounds in the hospital. Five of the victims stay unknown. He said. This was the worst school shooting since 26 kids and adults were taken to death at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012. PHOTOS: Taking South Florida high school. The scene in Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Additional:
Application used for watching BBC iPlayer in Ireland – available here.

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Media Resistance advocates searching out credible facts and forming your own opinion of stories reported in the media. When it is time for action we advocate peaceful protest and to always question authority. Who is it there to serve? And who is it there to protect?